Blender 2.63 doesn't support playback:'Blender'?
Books tend to use a slow release cycle and then are available for a long time. Version 2.63 of blender included with the book was released more than 2 years ago and would have been compiled using an older system version than what you have installed now. After installing newer versions of your system and supporting libraries previous releases can stop working.

The best option would be to try a new blender version. If you have trouble with the official release versions then you may want to look at tips on installing builds made available by others or compiling blender yourself.